Since the Amaryllidaceae alkaloid pretazettine has been shown to exhibit significant anticancer and antiviral activity, the total systhesis of this and related alkaloids is being actively pursued. Special emphasis is being placed upon the synthesis of derivatives of pretazettine which are expected to be more stable and more lipophilic. Reasonable quantities of these compounds will be made available for biological screening. New, general synthetic methods are also being developed. For example, a general procedure for the construction of quaternary carbon atoms by the geminal acylation-alkylation at a carbonyl carbon center has been developed. Efforts are underway to extend this method to the enantioselective generation of fully-substituted carbon atoms. A new strategy for the synthesis of anticancer agents such as verrucarol and anguidin utilizing intramolecular photochemical (2 plus 2) cycloadditions is under active investigation.